About this site

This website seeks to provide an assessment of three tools or software packages information architects might encounter in the course of their work, evaluating the benefits these tools offer for the design, implementation, maintenance and review of web sites and intranets.  Each section aims to be a primer for novice or inexperienced users as to the basic features, functional requirements and return on investment each tool affords, whilst at the same time providing a more detailed analysis of usability and functionality.  Organisational context, site content and user experience are the fundamental considerations in weighing up the effectiveness of these tools and in deciding whether to introduce a particular tool to a project.

I have chosen to review tools and software packages commonly used or rapidly being adopted by libraries and information organisations and in information architecture practices.  There is much overlap between products as vendors and developers strive to supply a unified system or solution to organisations and businesses.  For instance, many content management systems like Drupal have inbuilt taxonomies, overriding the need for thesaurus management tools such as MultiTes.  Indeed, Morville and Rosenfeld assert that in the future tools will be increasingly combined so that it will not be a case of making an exclusive choice between one tool and another (Morville and Rosenfeld, 2007, p. 355).

This website was created using Dreamweaver CS5.

 

 

Image Credits

Website Logo from Microsoft Clip Art (altered)

Drupal logo from Wikimedia Commons

Microsoft Visio logo and screenshots from Wikimedia Commons, used for educational purposes and without alteration, in accordance with the company's policy (as explained at link).

Drupal administration screen from the Drupal website

 

Morville, P., & Rosenfeld, L. (2007). Information architecture for the World Wide Web (3 ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.